My Life in the Theater (Part IV)

"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare
Guerrilla Theater Company, 1994

"Let's talk."
- Romeo and Juliet, III.v

The last time I yelled at an actor was in 1994.

We were close to opening Romeo and Juliet at the Actors’ Gym (current site of the Bourbon Street Barrel Room) for Guerrilla Theater Company. It was one of those moments when the entire company crosses the stage, a pantomime, as music and recorded narration plays.

I was seated in the house. I could hear chatter throughout the space, especially out in the lobby, and it was those folks who needed to center first, setting off the action. I was pretty sure they weren’t paying attention, and I called the cue anyway.

The music started, and … nothing. No one entered, as I had assumed. I hollered for the music to stop, and from my seat I cried for everyone to stop fucking around and pay attention – to act like professionals.

There were murmurs of assent and understanding from the far corners of the space and we continued without further incident.

I was twenty-six. I have lived well more than another lifetime since then, and I cannot recall shouting in anger in a theatrical setting ever since. Not at Night Kitchen, not at Bad Epitaph, not in my current position. I have taught myself not to lose control; yelling is never helpful, and it may very well be harmful. Better not to.

"You Can't Take It With You" by Kaufman & Hart
Bay High School, 1982

Our drama teacher in high school yelled at me exactly once (well, twice – the other time was in a class, that is story for another time) and it was for the exact same reason. I was a freshman, it was tech week for the recently mentioned production of You Can’t Take It With You, and I was goofing off in the house when I heard my cue.

Panicked, I bolted through the auditorium and leapt onto the stage, ducking around the curtain in a desperate attempt to make my entrance late when our director held the action and dressed my down good. It was probably that moment I had in mind when I scolded the Guerrilla company. Perhaps that’s why I did it.

Are there those who enjoy anger? Who luxuriates in it? That anger is the way they get things done and that is a necessary avenue to success? Because I don’t see it. I have never been so alienated from a cast as I was from the Romeo and Juliet company, for a variety of reasons. It was quite the education. But shouting in anger is the end of open communication. Let’s figure things out together. Let’s talk.

To be continued.

My Life in the Theater (Part II)

Preparing for "Death Knocks"
Bay High School, 1984

The first time I ever stepped onto a stage was my freshman year in high school (You Can't Take It With You by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart). My character appeared at the very end of the first scene. I remember the moment. We’d rehearsed, I had my lines cold, very prepared, familiar with the entire ensemble – making a mistake was not a concern, I hadn’t even thought of saying or doing anything wrong, that’s how well-rehearsed we were.

And yet, just before I moved from backstage, unseen, hidden behind a fake door, to onstage, into the action, under the light, entirely visible to the audience, I was struck with one thought, shockingly vivid to me, even to this day:

“Who said you had the right to do this?”

Who said that? What voice was it? Was that my mother’s voice, she who I had embarrassed so many times with my pranks and shenanigans? Why do you have to attract attention to yourself in this way?

Maurice Adams, Brian Pedaci
"The Vampyres"
Dobama's Night Kitchen, 1997

Two years later, when I directed a short scene for an evening of one acts (Death Knocks by Woody Allen) I heard the same voice, right before I entered through an open window that was part of the set, only the voice in my head was a little louder. Because this time I was not merely a participant, I choice this piece. I was responsible for it happening.

When I drew a somewhat controversial comic strip for the university newspaper (if you believe being inscrutable as controversial) my college roommate asked the same question, suggesting as my mother would have; you could just draw these things and put them on the wall of our dorm, why do you have to put them out into the world?

Once more, when I was twenty-eight, this time sitting in the audience, as the lights came down and the music came up on opening night of my first full-length play (The Vampyres). I’d been working on the script for over two years, all my friends were involved in the production; directing, acting, designing the set, the mural, the costume, the lights, the sound – Oh! The sound!

We had a full house, everyone was very excited, and in the darkness, before the protagonist spoke his first word, I heard a voice say, “Who said you had the right to do this?”

"I Hate This (a play without the baby)"
Staged Reading
Dobama Theatre, 2002

Well, obviously, I did. I told myself that.

My wife thinks it is strange that I would even think this; after all, who has the "right" to do anything? And what entity provides that right? God? Society? My mother?

I do not always feel this way. Call it Imposter Syndrome if you like. But usually I rise above it. What is the difference, though? Confidence, I imagine. In myself, in the work. When I performed my first monodrama (I Hate This) I didn’t think, “Who said I had the right to do this?” No, I thought, I have a story to tell, and these folks came here to hear me tell it.

And it’s that last part, that people came here to see this, and that they are counting on me, and on you, baby, to do our best. 

To be continued.

Here Are The High School Plays!

10 Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse
(Zelda, left)

Several years ago, playwright and teacher Stephen Gregg, in his blog Playwright Now, put forth an argument that high school drama departments should stop producing hoary chestnuts of yesteryear.

Last year, as in most years of the late twentieth century, the top ten most produced plays in American high schools were crowded with scripts written at least a half-century old (or much older) including You Can’t Take It With You, Twelve Angry Men/Jurors, Our Town and The Crucible.

Add to that works of Shakespeare like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth (which are at least on the curriculum) A Christmas Carol and Alice In Wonderland, and you only have room for two plays written in the past generation; Almost, Maine and Peter and the Starcatcher … that last an adaptation of Peter Pan.

Gregg’s point is not to put down the works of the past, or to place some kind of moratorium on Shakespeare (as some have suggested) or the works of Kaufman and Hart. One of the most basic disconnects between today’s professional stage and its high school equivalent is that economics have driven playwrights to create plays with small companies, where your average coach needs to cast as many kids as possible.

There is an opportunity here, for aspiring writers to create new works, geared towards the needs of your average troupe of teenage thespians.

My eldest is a high school freshman, and though I have roped them into performing a few ten-minute plays at Pandemonium, they have only this weekend performed in their first complete play -- a performance of 10 Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse by Don Zolidis. This one-act play (it clocks in at about thirty minutes) is one of the most-produced short plays in America.

In fact, if you peruse the list of popular short plays, there is a much wider variety of contemporary work (including This Is a Test by none other than Stephen Gregg) several of which satisfy one of the needs described by Gregg, that works for high school stages should have many characters, and that these characters should be largely teenagers.

But that last point, however, leaves me unsatisfied. While it is true that classic plays can seem dated (obvs, how can it be classic if it ain't old) and designed to keep the manufacturers of spray-on gray hair color in business, the act of playing is the art of being someone else. And producing period work, if executed properly, can be an education in history, class, race, and much more.

Runaways (Bay High School, 1984)

We did a contemporary play when I was a junior in high school, Runaways by Jay Christopher (not the musical by Elizabeth Swados) about a shelter to keep kids off the street. But I was relieved to be cast as director of the shelter, and not as one of the teenagers. I already was a teenager. I wanted to be someone else.

So, why not have both? My recently published adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Secret Adversary features two plucky protagonists barely in their twenties, and a variety of colorful characters who are not necessarily any specific age. It’s a large-cast show with thrills, comedy and romance. Also, you get to learn about the aftermath of World War One and the sinking of the Lusitania. Wins all around!

I agree, it is bizarre that one play in particular, You Can’t Take It With You, has remained on the most-produced list pretty much since the rights were made available. This, in spite of an increasingly long list of references which have faded from collective awareness and, of course, the problem with Donald and Rheba.

Heck, that was the first play I ever performed in, when I, too, was a high school freshman. And I have had colleagues speculate that certain plays and musicals remain in rotation is precisely because high drama directors did those shows when they were in school.

My recommendation would be equal parts of each; that drama directors should dig deeper into the classical repertoire, and produce and promote new work by contemporary playwrights.

Speaking of which, The Secret Adversary is available from YouthPLAYS.

Sources:
"Where Are The High School Plays?" by Stephen Gregg, Playwright Now (5/24/2015)
"The Most Popular High School Plays and Musicals" by Elissa Nadworny, NPR (9/15/2017)
"We Should Ban Shakespeare From The Stage For Five Years To Foster New Plays" by Lachlan Philpott, The Sydney Morning Herald (5/2/2016)
"Top 10 Most-Produced High School Plays and Musicals of 2016–2017 Revealed" by Adam Hetrick, Playbill.com (9/15/2017)